Lee Carter sat alone. In a room full of people. She saw nothing but the stars up in the nighttime sky outside the large window. Heard nothing. Felt nothing but the beating of her heart in her chest. She had made a horrible mistake, despite what the Starfleet Board of Inquiry had concluded. She had let herself be ruled by her emotions instead of her mind, her professionalism, and a thousand people had paid the ultimate price. *He* had paid the price of her foolish indulgence. She felt as dead inside as Matthew Cross was in reality. A body sat down at her small table. She knew who it was without turning away from the starry sky. "It wasn't your fault, Lee," said Jo Schmidt. She tried to think of something wise and profound to say, or at least something comforting, something that she hadn't already said a dozen times since they got back to Serenity from their disastrous escort of the Alpha Quietis three weeks ago. But in the end all she could think of was to repeat, "It wasn't your fault," as sincerely as she could and hope this time Lee believed her. Carter took a deep breath and finally moved her gaze away from the nighttime view out the window. She looked down at her untouched drink on the table like she had never seen it before, and then up at her friend. "I was in command, Jo. That makes it my fault." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The window unit is part of the "Science Fiction Construction Set". The buildings are several units of the "Dystopia" freebies. The sky is the "Dystopia Skydome". The furniture and props are freebies. As usual, Lee Carter is V3 with the WLG Lilli morph, CC Hair, wearing Star Brigade uniform retextured by me. Rendered in Poser 6. I switched on raytracing and set the reflective property of the glass, so render time was over 15 hours. The only postwork in the image are the stars and moon, and a few of the red lights on top of the buildings.